


The Ambassador

by baroque_mongoose



Category: Girl Genius
Genre: Gen, Mild Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-27
Updated: 2014-10-27
Packaged: 2018-02-22 20:33:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2520875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baroque_mongoose/pseuds/baroque_mongoose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gilgamesh Wulfenbach is visited by the British Ambassador.  It's someone he knows...</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ambassador

**Author's Note:**

> This story is set in the indeterminate future, from the point of view of the events in Girl Genius.

“Herr Baron?”

Gil extracted his head from a complicated nest of gears and turned it to face the minion who was standing respectfully behind him. “Yes?”

“The British Ambassador is here, Herr Baron.”

“Damn,” said Gil, looking at his watch. “I'd forgotten all about him. Go and tell him that I have been unavoidably delayed. I'll be with him in ten minutes when I've got myself cleaned up, but obviously don't tell him that part.”

“Yes, Herr Baron.” The minion scuttled off.

Gil went and scrubbed the oil off the visible parts of his person, brushed his hair, changed into a clean shirt and his most impressive long coat (dark blue, and with far more gold buttons than were strictly required for the purposes of fastening), and strode off to meet the Ambassador. He was standing waiting for him, his hands loosely clasped behind his back, wearing a coat of equal splendour to Gil's but dark red. He was tall with jet-black hair, and he sported a very familiar pair of sideburns.

“Sweet lightning,” said Gil. “Wooster!”

The Ambassador bowed gravely and formally. “I'm sure you have only momentarily forgotten, Herr Baron, that according to the standard protocol I should be addressed as Sir Ardsley.”

“Sir... Ardsley... Wooster. Right.” Gil sat down heavily. “Weren't you in disgrace last time I heard about you?”

“Yes, Herr Baron. However, the situation has changed somewhat in the interim.”

“And then some, by the look of it,” said Gil.

The Ambassador was still vertical, and there was quite a lot of him along that axis of co-ordinates. That made Gil feel vaguely uncomfortable, but not nearly so uncomfortable as the man's face did. It had always been a highly expressive face, and now it was deliberately wooden. Sir Ardsley was being as polite as he knew how, and since he was a British Ambassador that was very polite indeed; but there was nothing in his face to acknowledge the fact that he and Gil had once been good friends.

He's freezing me out, thought Gil. Is he still afraid of me, or is he angry? Maybe both. It's not as though the two are incompatible. Aloud he said, “Sit down, Sir Ardsley.”

“Thank you, Herr Baron,” said the Ambassador, and took a seat.

Gil took a deep breath. “Well. I know what you've actually come to discuss, and I'll tell you from the start that I think it's quite possible we could have a deal. There are a few things that need to be hammered out between us, but then there usually are with this kind of business. But before we get onto anything official...”

Sir Ardsley raised one eyebrow.

“Dammit,” snapped Gil. “We used to be friends!”

“Indeed, Herr Baron.” Still no smile, not even a relaxation of the facial muscles. Just a pair of impassive blue-grey eyes and an occasional interrogative eyebrow.

Well, thought Gil. All right. If that's the way you want to play it. I am not going to plead with you, and I am not going to make excuses to you. You may be a fancy Ambassador now, but don't you forget you used to be a minion. _My_ minion.

“Fine. _Fine!”_ he said angrily. “If you want us to be strangers, then we'll be strangers. After all, it's not as though I care one way or the other. You've come to conduct negotiations with me even though you obviously hate me these days, and you'll conduct them very professionally, I don't doubt. Well, I can be professional too. You just watch me.”

“I beg your pardon, Herr Baron.” There was that eyebrow again. Gil wondered bitterly if it was paid separately. “You appear to be under a misapprehension. I do not hate you.”

“You don't?”

“No.”

Gil felt he would still have been happier with “Of course not!”. But the plain “no” was true. Gil could see it in his face. It surprised him.

“So... not actual hate, then,” he said carefully. “Just a very strong dislike?”

“No, Herr Baron.” Sir Ardsley gave the ghost of a shrug.

“Then why the hell are you freezing me out?” shouted Gil. “Why? Just tell me that! Right now I'm talking to an impeccably polite tailor's dummy who looks disturbingly like my old friend.”

“You would, I take it, like the truth, Herr Baron?”

“Yes,” snarled Gil. And he'll give it, too, he thought. I know exactly what he's like. Won't tell a lie if there's any other way of doing it.

I'm not going to like this. I can feel it.

“Because I am not in a position to bring about any reconciliation between us, Herr Baron,” replied Sir Ardsley. “Therefore, as matters stand at the moment, I am obliged to work with you on strictly professional terms. I trust this meets with your understanding.”

“Ohhhh. Right. So this is all about Her Undying Majesty, is it? She knows I once threatened to melt England, she's not pleased about it – well, that's fair enough, I'll grant you I can see her point of view there – and so she doesn't want her Ambassador getting too pally with me, even though we have to work together? If that's the way of it, then, yes, it does meet with my understanding, if you want to put it like that.”

“No, Herr Baron. Her Undying Majesty has nothing to do with it. This is an entirely personal matter.”

Gil glowered at him. “And what does international protocol say about telling an Ambassador to get wound, Sir Ardsley?” he enquired. “Because right now I am so tempted.”

“International protocol frowns on it, Herr Baron, but I would not stoop to mentioning it outside this room,” replied Sir Ardsley smoothly. “You need have no fear.”

“ _You_ are telling _me_...” Gil began, then stopped.

Fear. He says I needn't fear. Coming from him, that... really hurts. But not in the sort of way I ought to be getting angry about, somehow.

Is this really the man I once picked up by the shirt front so that I could scream threats in his face?

Yes. Yes, it is. And, unfortunately for me, it always was. I was so set on terrifying him into doing what I wanted that I forgot something very important about him, which is that when he's afraid, he doesn't let fear have the last word.

“It's... it's all right, Sir Ardsley,” he said, more quietly. “That was neither a sensible nor a professional thing to say. I am not going to tell you to get wound.”

Now, at last, there was the first flicker of a smile. “I'm glad to hear it, Herr Baron. I will confess that I have never been quite certain how it was done.”

“You... you just said you weren't in a position to bring about a reconciliation between us,” said Gil. “Does that mean you would like one?”

“Yes, Herr Baron. Indeed I would.”

Gil thought a little longer. “Huh,” he said. “I understand you now. It's on me to make the first move, isn't it?”

“Yes, Herr Baron.”

Gil nodded, and reached out a hand. “Wooster? I'm sorry. Spy or no spy, you didn't deserve the way I treated you.”

Sir Ardsley clasped the proffered hand with a genuine smile. “Apology accepted, Master Gil.”


End file.
